


All In

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gambling, Heist, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-12 08:21:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18442691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: Lovett knows that he can no sooner turn his back on Dan than Jon can on Tommy and that leaves them at an impasse.





	All In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joshlymanwalkandtalk (Joshlymanwalkandtalk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joshlymanwalkandtalk/gifts).



> Written for joshlymanwalkandtalk for Crooked Exchange 2019. I hope you enjoy this is as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Jon reaches for his dagger at the same time as he blinks his eyes open.

His fist squeezes around air. His heart pounds.

"Looking for something?"

Jon whirls around to see Lovett perched, cross-legged, at the foot of his bed. Or, at least, the outline of him silhouetted in the moonlight. He's twirling Jon's favorite dagger between his fingers like it's a coin.

Leo's head is cradled in his lap, practically purring under Lovett's fingers. Jon frowns at him. "You are the worst kind of guard dog."

"Hey," Lovett chastises as he scratches between Leo's ears. "He's as good a guard dog as you are a stealth assassin."

Jon wants to argue. But after the Vandermeer job he'd promised himself he'd stop playing so fast and loose with the truth. And Lovett did get in here, neutralize his dog, and take his favorite dagger from _under his pillow_ , so- "That's a fair criticism."

Lovett rolls his eyes so hard that Jon's mother would have chastised 'careful, or they'll get stuck up there.'

Jon's chest aches. He hasn't thought about his mother since- well, since the last time Lovett was in his bedroom. Fuck, he needs to find a better crew. ASAP.

"I don't know how much I like this new, more humble version of you, Favreau," Lovett says when his eyes have settled.

"What can I say?" Jon leers. "You bring it out in me."

Lovett flinches, the moonlight catching on his full head of unruly curls. His chest is vibrating with the smallest tremors and, nope, not flinching, shaking with silent mirth. "Your flirting," he gets out between gasps of it, "is not your best weapon."

"Well then," Jon growls, "give me back my actual weapon."

Lovett uncurls his knees and slides silently off the bed. He tosses the dagger and Jon catches it expertly, his fingers curling around the hilt and his chest settling under its familiar weight.

His smile slips, though, as Lovett pulls Leo into his arms.

"Pfeiffer's got a job for us," Lovett explains as Leo rests his head on Lovett’s shoulder. Traitor. "Said I needed to make sure you'd come, so I'm taking Leo as collateral."

Leo licks the side of Lovett's face and Lovett giggles into the pre-dawn quiet.

"You have thirty minutes."

"Or what?"

"Come on, you know better than to want the answer to that." Lovett shifts Leo higher onto his shoulder and then he's gone.

"Fuck," Jon whispers into the empty space where they used to be. 

***

Leo's tussling with Pundit when Jon arrives, two whirs of golden fur against the smart marble floor of Dan's office. Jon glares daggers at Leo as he enters, fingering his actual daggers to remind himself that they're there and that they’re sharp and dangerous.

"Finally," Lovett sighs, his eyes dancing. He’s sprawled in the worn velvet visitor's chair, his ankles kicking against the fraying sides.

Jon rolls his eyes. He'd taken the extra five minutes to gel his hair, sue him. It’ll be worth it if this new job starts right away because, despite what Lovett says, his flirting _is_ one of their best assets. He thinks.

Jon blinks the thought away and looks past Lovett to share a smirk with Tommy, who's leaning against the floor-to-ceiling windows of bulletproof glass that line the outer wall. His arms are crossed faux-casually across his chest, but Jon knows him better than to be fooled by that. Every one of Tommy’s muscles are tightened for battle.

Jon manages to hold back another eye roll as Tommy shakes his head in exasperation and drops his eyes to Lovett’s prone form. 

"Now that we're all here, can we get started?" Tommy as his fingers tap rapidly against his elbow. A nervous tick. The same nervous tick he'd had the first night Jon met him out in the Nevada desert. It had given him away then; it gives him away now.

"Not all of us," Lovett says at the same time as they hear the familiar, arrhythmic, thump-clump of footsteps against the floor. The hallway was built to echo, whether to keep Dan’s enemies from sneaking up on him or to announce his own presence, Jon’s never quite been sure, although Lovett bets on the latter.

Dan lets the door slick shut behind him. “What a motley group of fools,” he says, dismissively, as he crosses the room and lowers himself into the thick, leather chair behind his desk. He’s favoring his hip more than usual and Jon exchanges a short, worried look with Lovett that he hopes-

“Stop looking at me like some injured bird.”

\- that he knows better than to hope Dan doesn’t catch.

“You’re more an eagle than a blue bird,” Lovett suggests, swinging his legs around and under himself, “if that makes you feel better?”

Dan cocks his head. “It does, thank you.”

“No problem, boss.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Don’t call me that. I am not responsible for the bullshit you pull.”

Lovett shrugs. “When the job fits.”

Dan’s eyes stop rolling and narrow. “Don’t make me regret this before I’ve even started.”

Lovett makes a zipping motion over his lips. Tommy chuckles until Dan swings his piercing gaze on him, and then he schools his features into the perfect soldier’s smirk he’d perfected over a decade at the Academy.

Jon hates it. He looks away, at the peeling gold veneers and the scrapes Lovett’s chair has made in the marble floor and the chip in his own thumbnail, a remnant from that damn Vandermeer job.

“And what is it we’re starting?” Tommy’s voice is tight, like it has to be as pulled and stretched as his smirk is to fit his new persona.

“A job that will make you richer than you’ve ever dreamed about.”

“Are you sure about that? I can dream about a lot.”

“You know what happens to people who question me?”

“They lose fingers?”

“The most important ones,” Dan nods. “How does eight million dollars sound to you?”

Jon tilts his head, trying to do the math as Lovett says, quickly, “like two million more dollars in my pocket than I have now.”

“Eight million,” Dan repeats. “Apiece.”

Jon gapes.

Tommy’s feet scuff against the floor as he straightens. Jon risks a look up as the smirk falls from Tommy’s face.

Tommy’s never had much of a poker face, which has always been his problem. Jon can see Tommy calculating eight million dollars in blackjack hands and hours at the high stakes poker tables he counts his life in.

Lovett leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “What do we have to do? And if you say climb a rainbow and fight a squad of leprechauns, I will sic Pundit on you.”

Pundit looks up at her name. Her ear’s flipped over and she has a bit of Leo’s drool on the edge of her nose.

Dan raises an eyebrow. “Close.” He reaches into his desk and pulls out a large roll of paper that he spreads out on his desk. “We’re going to break into The Leprechaun Club.”

***

The Crooked Club is loud and bright, reaching for a modernistic Gatsby vibe but hitting something a lot closer to the Bellagio. The gold leaf is peeling from the walls, intermittently wallpapered over with red and blue stripes. The maroon velvet that lines the chairs and Blackjack tables once signaled opulence, but are now just a reminder of a bygone era.

In Jon’s head, he pictures beaded dresses and vibrant headdresses, three-piece suits and matching pocket squares. If he squints just right, he can hear the low notes of the saxophone and he can feel the rush and excitement of young people, sipping the purest gins as they talk in hushed undertones about radical political thought.

Jon likes to imagine what it would have been like to live in that era. To debate Marx and raise his pinkie around his Schnapps glass and-

“I should take a picture.”

Jon blinks. Elijah is standing in front of him, his floor manager’s top hat clutched at his side and his hair in disarray around his ears. His tie, littered with cows in unspeakable positions, hangs loose around his neck. If the Crooked Club could run without Elijah’s marketing genius and eagle eye for cheats and crooks, Jon’s certain that Dan would have fired him months ago.

“Fuck off,” Jon tells him, easily.

Elijah laughs and leans against the wall, his shoulder flush with Jon’s. The stripes on his vest blend in with the wallpaper and clash with his tie. “Stop glaring at my customers.”

“They’re lost in a haze of chips and possibility and those new margaritas Priyanka developed,” Jon reasons.

“Those things are fucking deadly,” Elijah agrees.

“So,” Jon continues, “they won’t notice me.”

“Maybe not.” Elijah shrugs and looks pointedly towards a table near the center of the room. It’s lifted onto a dias, the edges rimmed in gold paint and only slightly chipping.

Jon follows his gaze, his chest spiraling into his knees as he catches sight of Tommy’s bent, blond head. He sighs. “They might not notice _me_ ,” Jon repeats, slower and weighed down with a different kind of meaning.

Elijah doesn’t have the grace to grimace. “But.”

“But.”

“I extended his line of credit,” Elijah says, as he pushes off the wall. “I won’t tell the boss, but, I can’t promise that someone else won’t.”

Jon nods, “thanks,” and sighs deeply as he moves from his own place against the wallpaper.

Jon pushes through the crowd of patrons. He’s never understood the draw of the machines or the endless chase for the hardest kind of easy win. The clang of chips and the shuffle of cards grates against his ears, but he knows they sound sweeter than Wagner to whatever dark, sick thing curls in the back of Tommy’s mind. The dark, sick thing that- 

Jon shudders as he thinks about the role he played in that. When Jon had first met him, Tommy had been filling that hole with military discipline and precision, and Jon knows the responsibility he has to shoulder for the devil’s trade Tommy had made. Military righteousness for the underground’s moral ambiguity. Rules and regulations for the chaos of the poker table. Tommy had thought his life had meaning, had accepted it, unquestioned, before Jon opened his world to grey and Tommy clung to black and white wherever he could find it. Generally, in the black and red and numerical order of the cards.

Lucca’s the first to notice him. She raises her head from under the table and thumps her tail around Tommy’s ankles. Jon waves at her before he can stop himself.

Tommy follows Lucca’s gaze. He frowns at, Jon hopes, the wave and not at Jon’s general appearance.

“Hey,” Jon offers, coming up behind Tommy and putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “How’s it going?”

Tommy grunts and lies, “fine.”

Jon reaches for the meager pile of chips at Tommy’s elbow and clinks them in his palm. Tommy flinches, his eyes darting to Jon’s hand and following the flashes of gold and silver as they appear and disappear between his fingers.

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Wanna try that again?”

The dealer taps his fingers against the felt table top. “Bidding starts at $500. Call?”

“He folds,” Jon says.

“He raises,” Tommy corrects, his voice icy. “All in.”

He grabs at Jon’s hand, pulling at the chips and seeming to feel none of the flashes of electricity that crackle up Jon's arm as their fingers brush. He turns from Jon easily and shoves the entire pile into the middle of the table, before flipping his cards with a flourish.

The patron on his left crows and turns over his own cards. 

“Shit.” Tommy swears, not quite under his breath.

“Straight wins.” The patron flips his top hat off his head and starts sweeping his winnings into it.

Jon squeezes his fingers on Tommy's shoulder, but Tommy pulls away from him, pushing back so quickly that his chair topples over. Lucca jumps to her feet, barking and racing after Tommy as he storms into the crowd.

Jon bends down to right the chair. “Apologies for my friend,” he says, pathetically, to the man in the top hat and strolls after Tommy.

Jon finds him outside, leaning against the outer wall of the Crooked Club and glaring forlornly at the half-smoked butt that Lucca's sniffing. His shoulders tighten as the door slams closed behind Jon.

“You better hope Dan doesn't find out how much credit Elijah extended you,” Jon starts. It's not his best opening salvo, but it's a Tuesday night and he's fucking tired.

Tommy shrugs his shoulders, wound tight as a series of square knots. “I'm about to come into $8 million dollars, I'll get him back.”

“And if we don't complete the job?”

Tommy looks down, stubbing at the cigarette with his toes to get it out of Lucca's teeth. “If we don’t complete this job, my debts are going to be the least of my problems.”

Jon frowns down at Tommy’s feet. His boots are as shiny as they were the day they met, military-clean despite trekking through miles of desert to reach Jon’s rebel stronghold. “The plan is solid.”

Tommy snorts. “There is no plan.”

“There will be,” Jon argues, loyally. “Lovett has a plan. Lovett always has a plan.”

Tommy sighs. His eyelids twitch and Jon knows he’s just barely kept himself from rolling them. “Someday, all that blind optimism is going to lead you down a gangplank.”

“Already did,” Jon says, softly. “And we survived, didn’t we?”

Tommy shrugs. “Depends on your definition of survive.”

Jon sets his shoulders back against the wall, the uneven edges of the brick pulling at his t-shirt. He’s tired. He’s been tired since Lovett woke him up that morning. He’s been tired since Tommy’s regiment pulled him out of bed over two years ago, slapped him in chains, and dragged him thirty miles across sand and stone.

Tommy grinds his toe into the ground until the concrete edge cracks and shatters, a light grey streak maring his boots. “The Leprechaun is the best-protected club in New Vegas.”

“The Leprechaun is a shrine to rich, conservative mediocrity.”

“You know why?”

“Why it’s a shrine to mediocrity?”

Tommy glares at him. “Why it’s so well protected.”

Jon sighs. “I know.”

“Because McConnell is a reputable businessman,” Tommy tell him, anyway.

“I said I know.”

“And reputation is everything in this town.”

Jon does roll his eyes. “McConnell _pretends_ to be a reputable businessman.”

“He does a damn good job of it,” Tommy shrugs, like it’s a foregone conclusion. “And that’s all that matters. He can point to all the coin he’s invested in the military, all those photos of him leaving the mayor’s office. Fuck, he’s even on the council-”

“He’s on the council because he’s swindling the council.”

“He’s on the council because it’s a great cover for the swindling.” Tommy shrugs again. “Pfeiffer could learn a few lessons.”

Jon’s shoulders straighten. “Dan’s an honest man.”

Tommy laughs, edged and sharp. “Dan’s leading a gang of thieves to steal the most valuable painting in the country.”

“A painting McConnell claimed through a series of corrupt deals and alliances. Dan’s just setting the record straight.”

“A 22nd Century Robin Hood.”

“Yes,” Jon says, earnestly.

“Honestly, Jon.” Tommy reaches for Lucca’s lead. “You’ll never learn.”

“Maybe,” Jon shrugs, pushing away from the wall. “But my ideals have gotten me this far.”

Tommy shakes his head and turns back to the doors. He stops with his hand on the handle, Lucca running into his heels. “Your luck might just be running out.” And then he’s gone.

***

Lovett answers Dan’s door in a pair of loose boxer briefs and one of Dan’s button-downs, the sleeves rolled at his wrists. He has the faintly vacant look he has every time Jon catches him mid-tinkering and, over his shoulder, Jon can see the remnants of what used to be one of the military’s latest chemical bombs spread across the table.

Lovett steps back, letting Jon in absently and returning to curl in his chair. Pundit jumps into his lap and Lovett automatically tangles the fingers of his free hand in her curls as he asks, “what are you doing here?,” without actually looking at Jon.

On the bed, Dan turns the page of his book. “Ignore him, he’s focused.”

“You asked me to lay an impossible booby trap,” Lovett grumbles, turning over a piece of shining military-grade steel in his hand. He drops it to the table and reaches for a rusted piece instead.

“I have the utmost faith in you,” Dan promises. His eyes dart quickly across the page, then he marks his spot with his index finger and looks up at Jon. “What can we do for you?”

Jon shifts on the balls of his feet. Dan’s shirt is unbuttoned, his bad leg spread in front of him, his toes flexing and unflexing as he tries to stretch the muscles around the polio-riddled bones. It’s been almost two years since Dan was holed up in this very room, his eyes glassy with fever as he fought against the deadliest Global Warming-fueled strain of the disease. It had rushed through New Vegas like a plague, leaving thousands dead or good-as-dead.

Jon remembers the smoke streaming continually from the crematoriums when he and Tommy had first arrived - cold and tired and heart-weary after escaping the military’s clutches - to find the city in the dying grasps of polio’s destruction. He remembers the rumors: the city’s most promising mob boss done for, disappearing for months behind a door marked with a red X, no one but his right-hand man allowed to come or go.

Jon had taken advantage of Crooked’s disarray. Without Dan’s leadership, the infighting had been crippling and jobs were falling through the cracks. Jon picked up more than a few on the black market, wielding his knives and his words to put food on the table and a roof over his and Tommy’s heads. Tommy hadn’t approved of Jon’s methods, but Tommy didn’t approve of many things and he ate the ill-gotten food, so, Jon had spent months telling Tommy to fuck right off or go his own way.

Tommy never did. Either thing.

Jon sighs and crosses the room to sit on the end of Dan’s bed. He reaches out, his fingers circling Dan’s ankle so he can rub his thumb, gently, over the ankle bone. “Hurting tonight?”

Lovett puts down the metal pieces he’s working with and turns to look at them. He frowns.

Dan kicks at Jon’s thigh, dislodging his fingers. He draws his bad leg to his chest, not quite able to hide his grimace from either of them. “Lovett can vouch that I’m fine,” he says, turning to smirk in Lovett’s direction.

Lovett coughs. “As I recall, I did most of the work. You just lay there.”

Dan shrugs, easily. “I remember it differently.” His flush stretches all the way down his chest, a rose stripe disappearing into his boxers.

Jon forgets, sometimes, that they’re still just men, boys almost. This mob boss, his name whispered around town as the most ruthless boss in the game, and the right-hand man who never leaves his side, who whispers Dan’s name not like it’s something to be feared, but like it’s a benediction.

“If I had been there, I could mediate this debate,” Jon says, letting just a tinge of the actual petulance he feels seep through. “But I wasn’t invited to your tryst.”

Lovett narrows his eyes. “We do have fun without you sometimes. Most of the time, actually.”

“That’s a shame.”

Dan hums - in agreement or disagreement, Jon honestly can’t tell - and opens his book again across his knees.

“Besides,” Lovett continues, swiveling back around in his chair and picking up the metal work, “you were busy.”

Fuck.

“Vietor’s trying my patience,” Dan adds, flipping his page and tracing the sketch at the top of the next one. “Lovett, I think I found it.”

Lovett’s eyes light up and he pushes ungracefully out of his chair. Pundit makes a disgruntled noise, but Lovett ignores her as he makes grabby hands for the book. “Let me see.”

Jon honestly has no idea how the Lovett he knows, now, is the same Lovett he first met. They had met on a job, just a couple of months after Jon had arrived in New Vegas. Or, well, _met_ is a bit of an exaggeration, Jon supposes, for the way Lovett had snuck up on him, so light on his feet that Jon hadn’t known he was there until the dagger was poised at his throat.

Jon had never met someone who could keep up with him. But Lovett had met him, knife jab for knife jab, word for word. Calling each of Jon’s parries and raising it a quip. Jon had gone all in, and he’d still ended up on his back, Lovett perched on his chest, the stolen diamond necklace in his hands and wearing a thoughtful expression under a mop of messy curls.

Jon had been absolutely certain, then, that Lovett would kill him. Jon’s body was going to end up in one of those damn crematoriums and Tommy was going to waste away in that tiny apartment because he’d rather drown in his principles than steal the fucking bread he needs to survive.

But Lovett hadn’t killed him. Lovett hadn’t even chained him up. He’d simply held out his hand to help Jon up, and then he’d taken Jon to see the Boss. 

Dan had still been sickly, then. Sitting up in bed, his white dressing coat doing nothing for his pale complexion or the shriveled leg Jon could just make out under the sheet. But the polio had passed his mind, already, and he had a plan to destroy the old crew that had betrayed him and build a new, much stronger Crooked out of the ashes.

That was over a year ago now. The Crooked Club is already one of the most profitable clubs on the Strip and the gang is nearly the most feared. If - _when_ \- they finish this job, Dan’s revenge will be complete and Crooked will be the undisputed King of the Strip.

Jon wants that. Jon’s always wanted that.

But, Jon has always wanted more than he can have.

He sighs and stands, wiping his palms on the thighs of his pants. “What can I do to help?”

Lovett holds up a finger for Jon to wait. His eyes rove across the sketch, his entire body curled towards Dan’s, intimate and warm and easy in a way Dan rarely lets himself be with anyone else. Jon can almost see his mind working behind his curls, like the series of cogs and levers he’s so good with.

Finally, Dan must be as impatient as Jon is, because he tugs at one of Lovett’s curls. “Wanna share with the class?”

Lovett looks up at Dan, blinking behind his glasses as he slowly comes back to them from wherever he goes when he disappears into his machines. “This will work.”

Dan’s smile splits his face, slowly. It’s beautiful and dangerous, like a blinding sunrise washing a day-old battlefield in light. “Yeah?”

Lovett bites his lip as he nods. “If I can build this, it’ll get us into the vault of the Leprechaun Club.”

Jon tips forward on his toes, trying to see the sketch around Lovett’s shoulders. “You can build it, right?”

Dan turns his head to glare at Jon. “Of course he can.”

Jon holds up his hands. “I’m just asking. My neck is on the line here.”

Lovett grits his teeth. “I can build it. I just need a few things.” He pulls a pen from his collar and a scrap of paper from his pocket. He scribbles out a list and holds it out.

Jon steps forward to take it. The paper and Lovett’s fingers are warm as Jon takes it. “I can do more than be your errand boy.”

“Let us worry about the plan,” Dan orders. He’s still glaring. Jon regrets chasing that beautiful smile away so quickly. “You worry about other things, like keeping that boy of yours in line.”

“He’s not _mine_ ,” Jon says, automatically, trying to ignore the way his heart throws itself into a triple lux. He shoves the crumpled list into his pocket.

“And try not to get yourself killed,” Lovett adds. “Some of the things on that list are hard to find. You’re going to have to steal a lot of them.”

Jon doesn’t dare take a closer reading of the list while Dan’s gaze is still fixed on him.

“Keep Vietor in line,” Dan repeats, then turns his head, breaking it.

Jon sighs. He knows a dismissal when he hears one.

He turns, just once, when he’s at the door. Dan’s chin is resting on Lovett’s shoulder and they’re whispering softly to each other.

Jon’s heart throws itself into another series of somersaults. He tells it to chill the fuck out as he slips outside.

***

Jon should have turned a light on when he entered Tommy’s hotel room-turned-apartment in the rafters of the Crooked Club. Instead, he feels his way through the dark, stubbing his toe twice before banging his knee against an out-of-place chair and swearing, “shit.”

“Jon?” Tommy’s voice is rough and sleep-worn. Jon can see him sit up in his twin bed, the sheet pooling around his waist and the moonlight gleaming off his mess of thinning blond hair.

“Better be,” Jon grumbles, “or you’d be dead right now.”

Tommy digs his hand under his pillow, frowning when he comes up empty.

Jon grabs the ivory-hilted pistol from the table and holds it up. “This what you’re looking for?”

Tommy nods, reaching out for it. “Thanks.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Leave it under your pillow. At least pretend that you know there’s a price on your head.”

“Not nearly as large a price as is on yours.”

Jon preens, sticking his chest out the way he used to see peacocks do when his mom would take him to the zoo on her rare days off. Before she- Jon swallows. “That’s why I keep two daggers under mine.”

Tommy purposefully places the pistol next to his knee, where he’s bound to kick it off in the middle of the night. He crosses his legs, leaning over his thighs. “What are you doing here?”

Jon sighs and sits, gingerly, by Tommy’s feet. He grimaces as he tries to slide his jacket over his burning shoulder. “I need a second pair of hands.”

“And Lovett’s buried in his machines?” Tommy guesses. He scoots forward and hisses before Jon has a chance to affirm. “Fuck, Jon, you’re injured.”

“A scratch,” Jon shrugs, then regrets it. He amends, reluctantly, “from a dagger.”

Tommy flicks on the small light by his bed, his shirt riding up as he reaches for it. Jon bites his lip against a groan and Tommy frowns at him. “That bad?”

Jon shakes his head. “Not that kind of groan.”

Tommy ducks his head, but Jon can still see his flush in the tips of his ears and the strip of blond skin around his collar. In the weeks they’d spent in the desert together, Jon in handcuffs and Tommy in his military uniform, Jon had relished the ability to make Tommy blush. It had been the earliest sign that Jon was getting through, that his endless talk of rebellion and structural inequalities were creating cracks and fissures in Tommy’s armor.

If Jon was raised in a commune - his evenings spent discussing political philosophy and sexual freedoms around scraps of venison and scavenged cans of beans - Tommy’s upbringing was the exact opposite. His tables had groaned under the weight of wild boar and tropical fruits imported from the islands, while his mind had been starved of anything but polite, repressive upper class pleasantries.

For a while when they were on the road, Jon had been certain that he was breaking through the walls Tommy built, night after night, at that dinner table. That Tommy had been as enticed by Jon’s body and his free spirit as much as he was by Jon’s argumentative style. Jon had waited, every day for the first few months, for Tommy to make a move. He never did. Sometimes, Jon worries he imagined the way Tommy would blink when Jon touched his wrist or the way he’d stammer and trip when Jon would joke in innuendos.

But then Tommy will flush, like he is now, and all of Jon’s hope will come rushing back again. 

Tommy’s soft, uncalloused fingers scrape against Jon’s wound and Jon cuts off a pained noise. 

Jon sighs. Hope springs eternal, or whatever his adopted rebel mothers always told him. _You’re so good, Jonny_ , they’d say, _someday someone’s going to try and use that against you, but, never let them take it from you_.

Jon bites his lip as Tommy finishing peeling the rough edges of his shirt out of his wound and helps him lift his shirt over his head. Jon’s shoulder aches and pulses around the dagger wound. It’s mostly superficial, but Tommy still reaches for the bottle of pure alcohol he keeps for disinfecting. He hands it first to Jon for a long swig, then pours a generous amount onto Jon’s shoulder.

“Fuck,” Jon shivers, leaning into Tommy’s chest and burying his forehead in Tommy’s shirt. It’s sleep-worn and smells like him, a mix of cologne and booze and poker chips that smells like home to Jon.

“Worst part’s done,” Tommy promises, as he reaches for a roll of gauze and, so carefully and gently, starts to wrap Jon’s shoulder. “You didn’t tell me you were going out tonight.”

It’s a reprimand, and Jon closes his eyes against Tommy’s chest. Tommy isn’t wrong. Jon _hadn’t_ wanted to tell him. Jon hadn’t wanted to hear Tommy’s disapproval. Jon hadn’t wanted to explain that he was running Lovett’s errands because he wanted to, because he wants to get McConnell as much as Dan does. 

Tommy doesn’t approve of vengeance. Sometimes, Jon thinks vengeance is the only thing that keeps him going.

“Lovett needed a few things,” Jon says, wishing he could shrug under Tommy’s deft fingers.

Tommy makes a disapproving noise, anyway. “Someday, Pfeiffer’s going to get us all killed.”

Jon snorts into Tommy’s shirt, then pulls back just enough to look up. Tommy’s so close to him, his head bent over Jon’s shoulder and his eyes narrowed in concentration. Jon licks his lips, the alcohol making him bold and the possibility of their impending deaths making him reckless. “Do you ever think about-? If the entire world goes to shit tomorrow, do you ever think about the things you’ll regret not doing?”

Tommy schools his features but the shudder that runs through his body gives him away. Hope thrills through Jon, pushing him on, forcing him over the edge of decency he’s built for Tommy, around Tommy, in his mind.

“You do,” Jon says, gleefully. He drops his chin and closes half the distance between them. “You think about it, don’t you? Lying in bed, with nothing but the moon and the imagination lighting your way. Do you touch yourself? Tommy-”

Tommy swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing close enough to Jon to track the motion. “Jon.”

“Tell me, Tommy,” Jon presses. “Tell me you think about it too.”

Tommy chokes and ties off Jon’s bandage. It takes him three tries, with the way his fingers are shaking.

Jon’s chest beats rapidly and he blames the bloodloss and the rubbing alcohol coursing through his veins for the way he tips forward. His nose bumps Tommy’s and he drops his chin so that their lips can meet, uncoordinated and messy.

“Tommy,” Jon whispers. “Please, Tommy, if we’re going to die tomorrow, I want to know what you taste like.”

Tommy’s lips wobble and for one brief, wondrous moment, Jon thinks Tommy’s going to meet him halfway. But then Tommy pulls back, putting space and all their history between them.

“I think that’ll stay,” Tommy says and it takes Jon a moment to realize that Tommy’s talking about the dressing. “At least for the night.”

Jon nods. His hands are shaking in his lap as he flexes his shoulder. “Yeah. It feels good. Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Tommy says, but refuses to look at him.

“Well,” Jon says, slowly, pushing himself to stand on wobbly knees, “Leo will be waiting for me so I’d better go.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agrees.

Jon waits for a beat, but Tommy doesn’t look at him. Then he sighs and crosses the room. “Keep that pistol in reach,” he says, when he’s at the door.

“Jon?”

Jon’s heart beats wildly, hopefully. “Yeah, Tom?”

Tommy blinks, his eyes looking at a spot just above Jon’s shoulder. “This job-”

Jon waits for him to finish but, when he doesn’t, Jon taps down his heart and schools his features. He calls up a grin and finishes for him. “- is going to make us rich.”

“Right.”

“And it’s going to restore Pfeiffer to his rightful place as King of New Vegas.”

“Right,” Tommy repeats, then, quick and rough as if he’s barrelling through a wall, “we could leave, you and I. We could pack a bag and run.”

Jon frowns, the ghost of a kiss that never was and probably never will be still on his lips. “And why would we do that?”

“Because we want to survive,” Tommy says, quietly.

“There are more important things than survival,” Jon shrugs.

Tommy sighs and looks away, already sliding down into his sheets. “Right, of course. Good night, Jon.”

Jon frowns, watching him and trying to chase the feeling that he’s missing something. That if he’d just waited a little longer, been a little less impatient, Tommy might have told him whatever big, important thing he’s been hiding for the past few weeks. But Tommy’s already turned his head, his breath slowing and evening out. Jon reaches for the door handle. “Night Tommy.”

***

The first thing Jon learned when he got to New Vegas is this: during a job, everyone has a role to play. 

As Dan taught him, early and often, bringing along back-ups is expensive, in both money and stealth. Bosses choose their teams based on a carefully-chosen set of unique skills and even more unique sets of trusts.

Jon wishes, now, that he’d put as much stock in the second as he had in the first.

The heist had, up until this point, gone off without a hitch. Or, as hitch-less as their ragtag crew ever manages.

Lovett’s technological marvels had been, well, teetering on the edge of marvelous. He hadn’t quite unleashed the metal-eating series of nanobots that he had promised, but the nanobots had provided the distraction Dan needed to work his own kind of magic and pick the not-quite-so-impossible-anymore lock. 

That’s all it had taken. McConnell clearly didn’t expect them to get this far, and they had started celebrating - hands had brushed, backs had been slapped, egos had been congratulated - even before Dan had limped into the vault and hovered over Lovett’s prone form as he tested the painting’s authenticity. Lovett’s thumbs up had even softened Tommy’s shoulders, where he had been standing guard, his rifle perched on his shoulder, his eyes trained on the doorway. 

Hubris, Jon’s adopted mothers had been fond of telling him, would eventually be his downfall.

Jon’s tendency to trust, Tommy had always been just as fond of telling him, would someday spell his end.

In the end, Jon figures, hubris and trust are just two side of the same coin. He kind of wishes he had come to that conclusion before he’d found himself on the pointy end of his own dagger in a vault ten stories under the Strip’s most ruthless Club.

“You’re going to hand me that painting.” McConnell’s goon - Jon’s brain can only hold so much information, and his name didn’t make the cut - says. He has one hand on his hip, the other on the dagger he’d taken from Jon while Jon had been struggling to get the painting over his shoulder.

It’s still there. Jon can feel the cracks and peels of centuries-old paint coating the dagger wound that still stings and pulls every time he moves a muscle. With every chip of paint that falls to the marble floor, Jon can see eight million dollars worth of gold melting between his fingers. He feels powerless to stop it.

Except- The goon might have his daggers and Lovett might still be futzing with the remote on his nanobots and Dan might be scheming with his mind rather than his hands, but Tommy still has his gun.

Which is-

Jon frowns. If it were Jon, he would have taken the rifle long before he would have gone for the daggers slung around Jon’s waist.

Which is about the same moment that Jon remembers the first axiom of heisting. Each member has his job to do and Jon’s wasn’t to wield his daggers or help Lovett with the nanobots.

Jon had one job.

Tommy.

Jon’s one job had been Tommy.

And, judging by the gun Tommy still has poised on the goon but not shooting, Jon has fallen down on the job and cost them not only eight million a piece, but possibly - knowing Jon’s luck, probably - their lives.

The goon laughs and touches the end of Tommy’s rifle. “Shoot me or put that away before you hurt someone.”

Lovett laughs, his voice brittle and much too light as it bounces off the gold leaf lining the vault. “The first one. Tommy’s going to choose the first one. Right, Tommy?”

Jon hates the way Lovett’s voice rises at the end, like it’s a question he hopes but honestly doesn’t know the answer to.

But Tommy doesn’t look at Lovett or at Jon. “I know you.”

The goon laughs, brittle and dangerous. “You should.”

Tommy snaps his fingers, the rifle shaking a little with the movement. Lovett flinches and Jon can’t blame him. Tommy’s eyes narrow. “You were at my table at the Crooked Club last week. You were wearing a commander’s uniform.”

“I pulled it off, didn’t I?” The goon actually fucking preens. He brushes his shoulder where, Jon assumes, he’d affixed the fake gold epaulettes.

“Pulled it off?” Tommy asks, sounding dumbstruck even as the shoes start to fall around Jon’s head, fast enough to bury him.

“Did you-?” Jon swallows. “Tommy, what did you say at this poker game?”

“Nothing!” Tommy exclaims.

“Couldn’t have been nothing.” Lovett rolls his eyes. He’s taken a step back, towards Dan, his hand still futzing with something Jon really hopes is the remote behind his back. “The man has a dagger pointed at us, during our decidedly not-so-secret heist.”

“I didn’t-” Tommy’s eyes go wide and his face drains of color so quickly that Jon’s absolutely certain he’s going to keel over. Jon can’t quite be sure, but he thinks he’d let Tommy fall. He thinks Tommy’s righteous indignation will bounce off the fancy marble floor a few times and he’d kind of like to see that happen.

The goon’s face splits into a wide grin. He’s missing a tooth and a half. “You were rather desperate, as I recall.”

“I had a winning hand.” Tommy’s head swivels, his neck loose as the Babe Ruth bobblehead Jon had found, once, in the scrap pile by the rebel stronghold. “I _knew_ it was a winning hand. We needed the money. Pfeiffer, come on, you know we needed the money. Lovett was building that- We _needed_ the money,” Tommy finishes, lamely.

The goon laughs again and it scratches down Jon’s spine. “He was awfully quick to tell me about the-” He drops the dagger into his palm and makes air quotes. “‘Big job, bigger than you could possibly imagine’ he had coming up. Claimed it was more than enough for collateral.”

Tommy shivers. “That was quite a leap to get from that to this.”

The goon nods. “McConnell knew Pfeiffer would try something monumentally stupid soon enough. You just provided the date and time.”

Tommy opens his mouth to protest, but he never gets the chance.

What happens next is mostly a blur. Lovett finishes doing whatever he’s doing and then everything goes black and smoky. Jon’s ears are ringing and he doesn’t realize that the painting is in shreds all around him until he feels the ease in his shoulder.

“Run,” he hears Dan call. It sounds like a kaleidoscope of colors to Jon’s rattled brain. 

Then Lovett’s hand is in his and all he can think is _run, run, run_.

***

Jon has never seen Dan this angry.

He’s seen Dan call customers into his office, his mouth foaming with fury. He’s heard them cry and scream and beg, a steady stream of apologies and excuses - “I _had_ to cheat, my mother-in-law, you see, she’s sick” - as guards had taken a finger or two, as the apologies had slipped into screams, as Dan’s smile had grown.

He’s seen Dan walk up to employees on the floor of the Crooked Club. He’s seen the angry glint in Dan’s eyes as he had raised his voice, listing the employees’ white collar crimes for everyone to hear, loud and clear as the crystal chandeliers, ensuring that they’ll never find work again.

He’s seen Dan after Council meetings. He’s watched him pace the carpet in his bedroom, swinging his hands as he had ranted and raved about the Council’s stupidity and bias. In these instances, Jon had always taken Lovett’s lead, which, generally, consisted of lying back in bed to wait out the rant.

Jon’s seen Dan fuming and demoralized. He’s seen Dan at the end of his rope and he’s, on more than one but still rare occasions, seen Dan throw in the towel in favor of a bottle of the Strip’s best whiskey. Sometimes, Dan had even shared.

Jon has never seen Dan so calm and controlled.

“Just get it over with,” Tommy says, crossing his arms across his chest, pulling defiance around him like a blanket, ready to stamp out whatever fire Dan will throw at him before Dan’s lit the tinder.

Dan crosses his fingers over the top of his cane. His voice is steady as a bass beat. “What, pray tell, do you want me to get over?”

Jon forces himself not to take the deep breath he wants to take. That could mean _what punishment do you deserve?_ but it could also mean _beg for my forgiveness_. Dan never chooses his words lightly. Tommy, though- Tommy’s always spoken with the brash thoughtlessness of someone who didn’t start losing until he was long into adulthood.

Before Jon met him, Tommy talked in borrowed things. The barking of his commanders, the physicality the military had taught him, the rituals and niceties he’d learned from his parents. Jon had taught him other languages. The lyric of poetry, the intimacy of a hand in his, the value statement that can be made by breaking norms and rebuilding them in his own way.

Now, though, when facing the end of everything they’ve just started to build for themselves, Tommy slides into well-worn ridges. 

“Kick me the fuck out,” Tommy orders, wrapping the language of his military around himself as his hands twitch around his invisible rifle. “Send me packing. Take my fingers and my dignity and whatever pennies I have left in my account and set me loose.”

Next to Jon, Lovett makes a low, whimpering noise in his throat. He spreads his hand on the desk, his pinkie brushing against Jon’s.

Jon takes a deep, shuddering breath and twists his finger with Lovett’s. It might be his last time and, even simmering in that knowledge, he can’t help the little thrill he gets every time he and Lovett touch.

Jon’s going to miss Lovett the most, he thinks. He’s going to miss the roof over his head and the steady stream of food and the endless belief Dan has in Jon’s abilities. But those things don’t hold a candle to the way Lovett’s skin shines in the moonlight, the way he laughs when Jon touches him just right, the openness he brings to Jon’s bed and the shy way he always bends his knees to cover himself when they’re in Dan’s. 

Jon’s pretty sure he fell for Lovett the moment Lovett got the blade of his knife under Jon’s chin. 

He kinda wishes he wasn’t just realizing that now.

In his mind, Jon is honestly not sure what he’ll choose if Dan’s next words are to rightfully kick Tommy out of the Crooked Club, off the Strip, out of the entire Republic. In his heart, he knows that he can’t turn his back on Tommy. Not now, not ever. The night Tommy had woken him from his desert bed with whispered words of desertion and a key for Jon’s shackles, he’d as good as tied their fates together.

Jon dares a glance at Lovett, who’s biting his lip and watching Jon with hooded eyes, looking like losing Jon is a foregone conclusion. Because Lovett knows. Lovett knows that he can no sooner turn his back on Dan than Jon can on Tommy and that leaves them at an impasse.

Jon is so angry he has to turn away. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to look at Tommy again. And wouldn’t that be a treat. Scrounging for berries in the Dakotas or East Texas or, if they can make it that far, scavenging in Florida. Jon’s heard there are jobs there, jobs that will work them to the bone in exchange for a good meal and no questions. Jon can just picture his fingers growing sore and shriveled next to a Tommy he hasn’t brought himself to look at in years.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Dan asks. His cane thumps forward. “You’d like me to make this easy on you.”

“Nothing,” Tommy bites back, “about this is easy.”

Dan laughs, as hollow and steady as he’s been since they narrowly escaped the Leprechaun Club with their lives but without the painting. “Everything about your life is easy, Vietor. You find powerful men and do what they tell you to do it. First it was your father-”

Jon flinches, but he still doesn’t look up to see the betrayal chasing its way across Tommy’s face.

“- then it was the military, then it was me. You’re such a good boy. You follow your orders. You don’t ask questions. If I told you to go, you’d tuck your tail between your legs and you’d go. Well-” The cane thumps again. “I have news for you. I’m not like those other men. I don’t want you to follow my orders. I don’t want you to lick my boots and I don’t want you to bow to my damn altar.”

“What do you want, then?” Tommy asks, his defiance hanging on by a thread.

“I want you to question me.” Thump. “I want you to find your own voice.” Thump. “And I want-”

Lovett gasps, his pinkie tightening around Jon’s.

Jon looks up. And stops breathing.

Dan’s hand is spread across Tommy’s cheek, cradling him with a softness Jon’s only ever seen him use with Lovett. Dan leans into Tommy’s space, pressing their lips together as Tommy-

Well, as Tommy stands, frozen, his back as straight as they taught him in the Academy. Fuck.

“Fuck,” Lovett mutters, as if reading Jon’s mind. He slides his hand further over Jon’s, twisting all their fingers together.

Jon makes a noise, low in his throat, and squeezes, he hopes, on this side of breaking a bone. Jon had never thought- It had never occurred to him that the rope holding them together had been chafing as much against Tommy’s soul as it had his own. That Jon really doesn’t have a decision to make here, not because Jon will follow Tommy into the sun, but because Tommy doesn’t want him to.

Lovett’s hand is the only thing holding Jon’s shattering world together as they watch Dan step back, his cane thumping again as he puts a foot of space between them.

Dan’s expression is as impassive as his voice is steady. “What do you want, Tommy?”

Tommy licks his lips. “I want-” His voice cracks and he swallows. “I want to feel whole again.”

“Are you sure you’ve ever been whole before?”

Tommy’s body freezes again, but this feels more like he’s caught in the moment before movement rather in inertia. His voice is tiny as he whispers, “no.”

Dan sighs and starts to take a second step back. “Well, I can’t make you whole. No man can.”

Tommy’s hand whips out, his fingers circling Dan’s wrist. “You know what I really want?”

Lovett shivers, his palm sweating in Jon’s.

“Would I have asked if I didn’t?”

“I want to heal,” Tommy whispers. “I want help. I want guidance, from you, from-” Tommy glances at Jon and Lovett, too quickly for Jon to read much of anything in his expression. “-as I heal. And I want, more than anything, for your forgiveness.”

Dan nods. “That I can give you.”

Tommy’s face splits into the first real, unique smile Jon’s ever seen on him. He steps forward, closing the distance between them again in one stride.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Dan stops him, breath warm on Tommy’s lips. “Never do that again.”

Tommy shakes his head, “never, I’m sorry, I promise,” and closes the space between them.

This kiss is the opposite of their first and Jon’s pretty sure that Dan really did light his tinder this time. Tommy makes a noise in his chest, new and all his - theirs - and Jon feels his chest swell and burn with the heat of it.

As Tommy slides a hand under Dan’s jacket, though, Dan pulls back. He rests his forehead against Tommy’s for a moment, catching his breath and easing his aching hip, then turns to look as much at Jon as he does at Lovett. “Okay with this?”

Lovett nods, breathlessly.

Jon feels like he has too much breath, choking through his throat and sliding a metal cage around his heart. He doesn’t realize he’s gasping until Tommy is in front of him, his fingers on Jon’s wrist. “Hey.”

Jon swallows. His heart beats in his throat, the edges of its cage scraping against everything he thought he’d known for the past few years. “Hey.”

It doesn’t help, Jon thinks, distantly, that Tommy’s body is trembling against his and Jon’s having a hard time separating one from the other. If he’s lucky, Jon thinks, giddily, he won’t ever have to again.

Tommy spreads his fingers, sliding down to take Jon’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

Jon fights back the ridiculous urge to laugh. He swallows it back. “For which part?”

“For all of it?” Tommy shrugs, helplessly, the effect of the movement lost in how close they are. “For the gambling and for fucking up, over and over again, and for leaning on you for so long rather than-” He swallows. “-rather than owning up to what I’ve wanted.”

Jon feels Lovett’s hand slip out of his and hears the murmur of his and Dan’s voices. Jon can see the movement of Tommy’s adam’s apple and he can smell the sweat and the dust from the explosion on Tommy’s clothes.

Jon nods. “That’s a good list of things.”

Tommy chuckles and, before Jon can quite realize what’s happening, Tommy’s mouth is on his.

Jon’s world tilts and, finally, slides off the shelf to shatter on the ground. Jon has a moment to hope that, between the four of them, it’s enough to put it back together, before he loses himself in the feel of Tommy’s kiss.

***

Dan's bed is, generally speaking, too small for four grown men, even when their current goal is to be as close together as possible. Jon's not sure whose elbow is pressed into his side - judging by its soft edges, Lovett's - or whose lips keep accidentally brushing Jon's bare hip - by process of elimination, Tommy's - but it's definitely Dan's mouth murmuring above him, over him, hopefully soon in him.

Dan’s lips are on Jon’s collarbone and Jon tunes in in time to hear him whisper, “you’re so beautiful,” into Jon’s skin.

Jon shivers. He’s wanted so much in the months since Lovett pulled him into their bed. He’s bitten back so many promises but he thinks, maybe, if Dan means half the things tumbling out of his mouth, that he might not have to keep them back much longer.

Dan’s teeth graze against Jon’s skin, then sink deeper. Jon whines and arches his hips upwards, humping into the curve of Dan’s bad thigh.

“Finally,” Dan growls, leaning onto his arm and rising over Jon’s body. “I finally have your attention.”

Desperate laughter bubbles out of Jon’s chest. “You always have my attention.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.” Dan runs his finger over the fresh bruise on Jon’s collar, pressing deeper, focusing all of Jon’s attention on the pinprick of pain and the roughness of Dan’s thumb and the heat emanating from Dan’s own heavy erection.

“I was just-” Jon thrashes around for anything to say that isn’t _thinking about pledging my undying love_.

Lovett beats him to it. “He’s just overthinking with his heart when he should be thinking with his dick.”

Jon chokes out a breath that’s half the remainder of his laughter and half embarrassment. Tommy snorts from the pillow next to him.

“You’re an idiot.” Dan shakes his head, the fondness at odds with the pressure of his thumb. Or, maybe it’s not, because this close up Jon can see the nervous twitch of Dan’s lips and the small furrow in his brow. When he speaks, again, it’s like his words are squeezed out of him. “We might have lost $32 million today-”

Tommy groans. “Fuck.”

“But I’m three lovers richers and,” Dan’s voice chokes and he takes a moment to swallow, “I can’t put a price tag on that.”

“I could try,” Lovett offers, chuckling nervously. 

Next to Jon, Tommy’s body goes stiff and Jon makes a mental note that they need to teach him not to freeze up every time he expects the worst. Dan shifts over Jon, making an annoyed noise, and Jon knows he’s making the same note.

“But,” Lovett continues, “it would be a lot more than $16 million.”

Dan chokes out a laugh and drops his head. “Lovett.”

Lovett shrugs and sits back on his heels. “I’m only speaking truth.” His dick curls into the crease of his thighs, thick and red, but he ignores it in favor of running his hands up Tommy’s legs. Tommy spreads his knees, his thighs trembling under Lovett’s hands.

Dan’s hand stills over Jon’s ribs and Jon follows his gaze to the bob of Tommy’s dick, untouched but already leaking against his stomach. Dan’s eyes are fire and Jon has no idea how Dan keeps his voice level as he says, “we’ll have to find a new way to cement Crooked’s foothold on the Strip.”

Lovett nods thoughtfully, biting his lip and focusing on Tommy’s soft, smooth, unblemished skin. Lovett, himself, is littered with scars and bruises that never seem to heal. None as bad as the decay in Dan’s bones, but just as prominent and just as permanent. It’s enough to remind Jon of the life Tommy has led, the life, even, that he himself has.

But Lovett just ducks his head, promising “we’ll find another way,” before pressing the softest kiss to the inside of Tommy’s thigh.

“Fuck.” Tommy’s voice is wrecked, already.

Lovett smirks, the softness hardening as Tommy’s muscles strain. His eyes shine, mischievous as quicksand, as he looks up at Tommy. “Tell me what you want.”

Tommy swallows, swiveling to look at Dan and Jon. His blond hair is a mess around his ears and his eyes are light as the most cloudless summer day. He looks back at Lovett. “I want what you have.”

Lovett turns his own head.

Dan rolls his eyes. “I already told you what I want.”

Lovett matches Dan roll for roll and pushes up to kiss him. “Excuse me for making sure.”

Dan’s voice drops, low enough that Jon knows it’s meant for Lovett, only. “You could never want something I’m not willing and ready to give you. But, thank you for checking in.”

Lovett nods, kissing him, hard and wet and dirty. Tommy whines and pushes his hips into the twisted curve of Lovett’s waist.

Lovett chuckles, turning back and pushing Tommy’s hips to the mattress. “You’re so fucking impatient.” He slides back onto his heels and drops his lips to that same spot on Tommy’s knee, this time with more purpose. “I want that, too.”

Tommy’s eyes are wet and Jon rolls onto his side so that he can press a gentling kiss to Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy shivers. “You do?”

Lovett trails his kisses up Tommy’s inner thigh. “If you’d taken your head out of the damn poker table you might have noticed that a long time ago.”

Tommy’s chest heaves with the deepest sigh and he throws his arm over his eyes. “I’ve been so incredibly stupid.”

“No arguments here.” Dan reaches over, twisting his fingers with Tommy’s as he pulls his arm back. “We want to see you, love.”

Tommy shivers and Jon knows the exact moment Lovett takes him in his mouth. Jon can see it in the coiling of Tommy’s body and the breath Lovett pushes out of Tommy’s chest and the desperate way Tommy scrambles for purchase in Dan’s hand. 

“Lovett,” Tommy chokes out. “I should have fucking known your mouth would be good for this too.”

Jon smirks into Tommy’s shoulder. He knows exactly how good Lovett is with his mouth.

Lovett chuckles, muffled around Tommy’s dick and, holy shit, if that isn’t the hottest- Jon’s dick jumps against Tommy’s side. He trails his fingers down Tommy’s chest, light and barely there, to twist in Lovett’s hair and hold him there. Just like Lovett likes. 

Dan makes an approving noise and, keeping his hand tight in Tommy’s, adjusts so that he can draw a trail of his own from Tommy’s wrist to his shoulder. Tommy’s quivering, his shoulders and his abs and his thighs held so tightly that it has to be hurting. Dan shakes his head against Tommy’s bicep. “Come on, Tommy, let go for us.”

Jon tightens his fingers in Lovett’s curls, feeling the strain of his jaw as he redoubles his efforts. He slides his mouth down Tommy’s pecs, flicking his tongue over Tommy’s nipple until it’s as flushed and straining as every other part of him.

Tommy hangs onto his puritanical military instincts right up until the edge, but Jon knows the moment they start to unravel. He’s pictured this - always in the dark, always with Tommy sleeping just on the other side of the wall, always with a regret that he couldn’t quite lean into - a handful of times over the past two years, but it’s so much more satisfying than he imagined it would be to watch the facade crack and crumble and the real Tommy slip through.

Tommy comes silently, his entire body tensing an inch or two off the bed. Lovett works him through it, prolonging it endlessly, until Tommy’s begging with the shortness of his breath and the flailing of his free hand. Then Lovett pulls back, pushing Tommy’s hips to the bed and sitting back on his heels. He wipes at his mouth and smirks. “That was okay?”

Tommy snorts, the sound twisting, breathless and incredulous. “Okay?”

Dan shakes his head, finally letting go of Tommy’s hand. “You’re a monster, stop fishing for compliments.”

Instead of covering his eyes, again, Tommy uses his new freedom to tug at Lovett’s elbows, pulling him up and over him. “It was fucking incredible,” Tommy promises, raising his chin for a kiss.

Lovett makes a surprised noise and kisses him back. Jon keeps his hand in Lovett’s curls until Tommy sighs, soft and gentle, and Lovett pulls back. “We still have some work to do to get you to enjoy yourself,” Lovett tells him, fondly, sweeping Tommy’s mess of hair off his forehead, “but you were pretty fantastic, too.”

Tommy snorts, affronted, and helps Lovett slide off him. Dan catches him, pulling Lovett closer. “Hi, love.”

“Hi,” Lovett grins. He spreads his hand over Dan’s sore hip - Jon hadn’t even noticed how gingerly Dan was holding himself up - and flips them so that he can settle between Dan’s knees without putting so much pressure on him. “You liked that?”

Dan shakes his head, pinching Lovett’s side. “You’re so lucky that I adore you.”

“I never forget,” Lovett promises, leaning down to kiss him. When he pulls back, he catches Jon’s eyes and reaches out to snag his wrist, pulling him towards them. “You, too.”

Jon shakes his head and kisses Dan first, then turns to kiss Lovett, too. He can taste the trace of Tommy still on Lovett’s tongue and he surges forward, sliding his tongue deeper, wanting more, wanting it all. He shivers as he realizes that he’ll get the chance, next time. Not if he plays his cards right. Not if he begs and pleads and waits until the right moment. But, inevitably and for as long as any of them are likely to live before this godforsaken town overtakes them.

“I love you,” Jon says, feeling it thrill down his spine with the white hot heat of hope and certainty. “All of you.”

Lovett grins so wide, “idiot,” and spreads the hand massaging Dan’s hip even wider so that he can brush against the weeping head of Jon’s dick where it’s pressing against their ribcages.

“Fuck.” Jon shudders.

“That might be a little ambitious for right now,” Dan chuckles. He raises his good knee, settling Lovett into the perfect position and pushing his back up to press his dick to Lovett’s. He turns, pressing a kiss to Jon’s hanging head. “But, keep that in mind for next time.”

Just the thought is enough to push Jon right to the edge. “Please,” he whispers, his voice straining with the effort to hang on.

He’d be embarrassed about it, except Lovett’s already meeting Dan’s movements, dropping his own head and biting his lip under the sweaty mass of curls on his forehead. “This is going to be so fast,” he warns, snapping his hips with each word.

With one hand, Dan cups Lovett’s cheek, “for me, too,” and with the other he circles Jon’s dick. His thumb catches on the head and Jon cries out, pushing forward, into Dan’s hand and Lovett’s side.

Jon’s entire world focuses to the points where they’re connected. Sweaty, flushed skin. Straining muscles. Streams of moans and whimpers and the slapping of skin against skin. It’s familiar and practiced, Lovett knowing just how fast to thrust and Dan knowing exactly how hard to squeeze. Or, he does, until he slows down, so much less than he knows Jon needs and Jon’s eyes fly open to look at him.

But Dan is looking over Jon’s shoulder. He makes a small motion with his chin and then Jon can feel Tommy slide closer. He can feel the unsteady in and out of Tommy’s chest against Jon’s back and he can feel Tommy’s dick, softening and hot, in the swell of Jon’s ass.

Tommy’s hand is so big as he slides it around Jon’s side and onto his stomach. He drifts down and down and down, until he bumps into Dan’s fingers and Jon is absolutely certain that he’s going dizzy from the lack of oxygen as he holds his breath.

“Can I?” Tommy asks, his breath warm on Jon’s neck and his voice so low that Jon understands it more in vibrations than in sounds.

Jon’s throat is dry. There are black spots dancing in the corners of his eyes. His ears are ringing with the hitch in Tommy’s breath.

Tommy’s lips are warm on Jon’s neck as he presses a kiss to Jon’s overheated skin. “I’ve been wanting to do this for two years.”

This is ridiculous. This is impossible. Jon feels delirious as he laughs, desperate and wanting. “Since you handcuffed me?”

“Kinky,” Lovett laughs, then whines, “ow” as, Jon assumes, Dan uses his free hand to pinch him.

Tommy, though, just nods and fumbles his fingers around the head of Jon’s dick. “Not long after.”

The last two years shatter and come back together in the promise of a future, of so much more, of everything Jon’s ever wanted.

Jon nods, just the tiniest tilt of his head, but Tommy takes it for the approval that he’d meant it to be. He’s unpracticed, too soft and too fast, his hand shaking and stumbling, a fit of starts and stops that are somehow everything Jon’s always wanted and nowhere near enough.

Lovett groans out, that low, deep, drawn out noise Jon knows means he’s so, so close. “Please,” Lovett whispers, dropping his head to Dan’s forehead. “Please, Dan, I need- _help him_.”

Dan laughs and kisses Lovett, “patience, love,” then twists his wrist, reaching for Tommy’s fingers and entwining them. “Here,” he whispers, “follow my lead.”

Tommy’s always been good at that. He picks up Dan’s rhythm, the faster movements at the bottom and the slower, harder squeezes at Jon’s head. It takes a moment, but then, like he really had taken Dan’s warning to heart, he adds a twist at the end, something fast and blindingly hot and all his, and Jon cries out.

“Sorry, sorry,” Tommy says, his shoulders dropping and his hand slowing down.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Jon chokes. “Do it again.”

Tommy does. Again. And again. And again.

“Holy shit,” Lovett groans. “You’re so hot. I can’t- I have to-”

Jon leans over to kiss him. “Come for us.”

Lovett chokes, his body stilling as he comes in long streams across Dan’s thighs and chest. Dan moans, pulling at Lovett’s curls until he’s gasping into Lovett’s mouth, his hand squeezing impossibly tight around Jon and Tommy.

“Oh,” Tommy says, small and awed and that’s what does it for Jon. 

He’s pretty sure he blacks out for a moment, his vision blurring and greying as his own cry echoes around the thick walls of Dan’s bedroom.

He comes to an indeterminate amount of time later. Dan’s already asleep next to him, his small, satiated snores muffled in the pillow and Jon’s shoulder. There’s a warm washcloth between Jon’s legs, and Jon shifts just enough to spread his knees wider to give them easier access.

“Thank you for waiting for me,” Jon hears Tommy say, his voice low.

Jon feels the hand still between Jon’s legs. Lovett’s, then. “Was never a question. You’re part of us, Tommy, whether you like it or not.”

Tommy laughs, surprised. There’s the slightest tinge of his old mask slipping into the edges of it but, Jon figures, they have plenty of time to work on that, now.

“I like it,” Tommy promises. He settles against Jon’s side, his hand warm and possessive on Jon’s hip. “I’m all in.”

“Good.” Lovett’s hand disappears and Jon hears the splat of the cloth on the floor as Lovett throws it towards the bathroom. “That’s all that matters. We can figure the rest out in the morning.”

Jon smiles and hides it in the curve of Dan’s shoulder. They have tomorrow and that’s all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments always appreciated!


End file.
